Never Quite
by aforgottenwish
Summary: Sequel to Antipathy. After a long hiatus, Clark finally returns to Metropolis as a different person. No longer a victim, no longer resigned to helping people in secret, Clark runs into Lois Lane, a woman changed by the deaths of her best friend and cousin
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

Kaleb Elliot wasn't an idiot. He'd stuck around for an extra minute while his nearly hysterical girlfriend vocalized her feelings about him being exactly that, but he wasn't. Kneeling midst terrified children, gathered around the back of their overturned jeep, staring with wide eyes across the field that sat between them and their homes, he couldn't help but curse the lapse in attention which had let him fail to notice the freshly planted mines.

A wave of self-loathing had spread through him when he realized that some of the children had been thrown clear of the bus and into the field, but guilt wasn't paralyzing like it used to be, he knew it was his responsibility to return them to safety. It was his declaration of this fact that had resulted in the barrage of insults and insinuations that were currently being thrown at him.

She thought he was an idiot for wanting to run through a field of landmines to save the children on the other side, that he was an idiot for thinking that the addition of another body to the minefield, another trigger, walking death, could possibly help the situation. She was imploring him to wait, to let the engineers come with their metal detectors and diethylene triamide. But she didn't understand.

Any idiocy on his part could be directly attributed to the fact that he was participating in an epically dramatic scene, the proportions of which would have impressed even the most stoic movie-makers. He could just as easily have wandered through a Kansas cornfield as walked through this minefield deep in Africa, and so, he told her, "I'm not an idiot. But I can understand how it might look that way."

She gripped his hand. Gun fire could be heard and the explosions of mines not far away shook the ground. Kal pulled his hand loose and cupped her face.

"I'll come back to you," he said, wincing at how cliché the words sounded. He kissed her firmly on the mouth before moving away from her. She backed up and took shelter behind the toppled jeep, children huddling close to her. Kal squinted at the field.

When their open-top jeep had set off the mine, a few children had been thrown from the vehicle. That neither the jeep nor the airborne children had activated any additional mines was a miracle in itself. As Kal watched the field, the grass and carnage fell away, leaving the painful blue outlines of the mines. He knew the math; understood the engineering involved; he moved effortlessly through the mine field. Despite his advantages, his confidence that he could outwit the booby trapped field, he was nervous. Though the landmines presented him no danger, the human element – the children scattered across the field – made his stomach clench.

Most people who knew him here believed him akin to Jesus. These days, he cared more about saving lives than keeping his abilities secret. It was safer they believe him a savior than know the truth.

And this war torn country was safer than America had ever been, for him at least. Here, he was the scientist. Everyone else kept their curiosity in check; they believed in his cause, and cared less about his methods.

There were three kids in the field. They were frozen in place; they knew the dangers of a mine field.

One was sprawled, bleeding. Another held her wrist to her chest, tears streaking her dirty face. The third appeared unscathed. He checked them over, noting the simple break of the girl's arm, and the ruptured artery of the fallen boy's thigh. The only child still standing sported a rather impressive hematoma near his right hip.

"Hey, kids," he said softly. "You guys are doing great."

"Hey Kal," the girl said, just as quietly.

"Chiku," Kal said. "I have to help Abasi. Can you stand with Mabruke? If you walk straight to him, I promise you'll be okay." He watched as the girl moved slowly towards the other boy. She reached out with her unbroken wrist and took his hand.

"Abasi," he whispered. The boy smiled up at him.

"Kal," he said. "I hurt my leg."

"I know, baby," Kal said. "I'm going to fix it, but it's going to hurt. Is that okay?"

He offered his hand to the child. Abasi took it, still smiling dazedly. Kal tore his pant leg away.

From his bag he pulled a syringe containing some local anesthetic. It was a rare commodity in this part of the world, but Kal's connections allowed him better access to drugs than most. He carefully injected the boy, working with only his right hand so that the boy wouldn't have to let go.

There was a piece of shrapnel in his leg, and Kal pulled it slowly free, cauterizing the wound with his heat vision before he bled out. Lowering the intensity of his stare, Kal zoomed in on the wound and burned away all the bacteria in and around it.

He reached into his bag again, this time retrieving a stitching kit. Using his teeth to hold the needle, he was able to thread it and sew the wound together.

Finished, he looked up to check on Chiku and Mabruke; they hadn't moved.

He gestured to them, and they moved slowly towards Kal. "You guys were perfect," he said. "The three of you are heroes." He lifted the little girl onto his shoulders and Mabruke crawled onto his back.

"Your hip hurts a bit, eh, bud?" Kal asked him. He felt the boy nod. "We're going to fix it," he continued, "once we get home. Does that sound good?" Again, the boy nodded. Chiku sunk the fingers of her good hand into Kal's hair.

He lifted Abasi slowly, listening carefully to his heart beat and breathing. Together, they made their way back through the mine field.

"You always know where to step," Chiku said into his ear. "Does God tell you?"

He didn't answer. Through the dust, he could see Anna, her blonde hair darkened by dirt and her eyes squinted against the sun. There were about ten children crouched around her, hidden from an onslaught of gunfire by the jeep. Though Kal had been listening in case the threatening gunfire came too close, it was a relief to see them unharmed.

He smiled at the group, and despite the severity of the situation, white teeth shone back from every child's face. Anna did not seem amused.

Later, when they and the children were safe at the reserve again, she looked at him with wide, teary eyes, as she informed him that he couldn't save everyone.

"What if I can?" he asked her, pulling her into a hug. "Or maybe we can, together. If not, we have to at least try."

"I know what people say about you, Kal," she said. "But I think that you're starting to believe it. You're going to get yourself killed."

He sat down on their cot and looked up at her with large, honest eyes. "I'm not Jesus incarnate. I'm not some divine messenger. That doesn't mean I can't change the world."

She wrinkled her nose at him, and he knew that she'd forgiven him. "Surgeons can't change the world, Kal. They just cut on the dotted line."

"What, and some lousy Ph. D. is going to make a difference?" he asked, gripping her hips and pulling her down onto the cot with him. "I know you're good with a pipette, but it's not like we can even afford one."

He flipped her onto her back. He expected her to stretch up and kiss him, or to reply with another biting remark about the lack of innovation in surgeons, but her face turned serious.

"My flight's in four days," she said.

His smile faded. "You're really leaving."

"I've collected my data. I have to present my findings and get my grant renewed."

"Anna," he said, "these kids need us. They need _you_."

"I want you to come home with me," she said.

His face darkened. "Kal," she said. "What happened to you that you won't even return to the country?"

He grimaced. "Nothing happened to me."

"You're American," she pointed out. "I know we don't talk about our pasts, but I can tell from your accent."

"I might be Canadian," he said. She shook her head.

"But you're not. So come home with me. You don't have to tell me what happened to you before; it's not my business. But our future…"

"I've been living in Europe the last six years," he said. "I don't have any reason to go back to the United States."

She exhaled sharply. "You mail letters to Kansas every week, Kal. There's someone there you care about."

Kal sat up. "I'm sorry," he said, sounding shocked. He stood up. His eyebrows pinched, and he frowned, as though his actions were confusing to him. He left the tent.

Anna stared.

She could hear him talking to someone; everything on the reserve was close together and privacy was rare.

She moved to the side of the tent. There was a long silence, and then he spoke, his voice hushed, hurried. Kal was telling someone that he was sorry. She scowled; he was always sorry. "I'll be leaving," he said. "Within the next day or so. I'm sorry."

She peeked out of the tent. He was heading towards the tent where the kids were eating. Her breath hitched in her throat. He had changed his mind, she decided. He was coming home with her. Her hands shook. She had to be sure.

They had a box, overturned, acting as a desk. She riffled through his pile of papers; she found a clear bag with passports and other official looking documents.

She frowned. There were two passports. She flipped open the first one, and Kal's face grimaced back at her. She wasn't surprised; he smiled rarely and usually only for the children. Lately, she'd been blessed with a smile or two, and they always dazzled.

Hesitantly, she opened the second passport. A boy, a child really, beamed up at her.

"Clark Kent," the passport declared, of Smallville.

She opened the first passport again. Kaleb Elliot was born in Gotham City. Their birth dates were similar; a month apart, with the same year and date. She shuffled through the rest of the papers; there was no plane ticket.

"It's kind of refreshing," Kal's voice said, "to have someone snooping again."

The passports fell from her hands and a puff of dirt jumped from the ground as they landed. "I was just looking for your plane ticket," she explained.

He shrugged. "No plane ticket."

"Who's Clark Kent?" she asked. "And what do you mean, no plane ticket? How else are you leaving?"

He didn't answer. But neither did he look like he had anything to hide.

Finally, he said, "I was adopted. Clark Kent is the name my adoptive parents gave me. My birth name is Kaleb Elliot. I started using it after I moved away from my adoptive parents."

"Why?" she asked.

He held his hand out. She leaned down and picked up the passports.

"You look so much happier in the earlier picture," she said. "What happened?"

"Life happened," he said, as though it were obvious.

"Where are you going?"

"I haven't decided, yet."

"So, what? You're just going to get on a plane? Abandon me?"

"This has _nothing_ to do with you," he yelled, and she flinched at the sudden change in volume; the sudden anger in his eyes.

He pocketed the passports and left the tent.

He walked for hours, feeling nausea creep through him as he moved around the carnage that marked the land outside the reserve. For the first time in years, he went flying.

Looking down on Africa, it was a lot easier to tell himself that he could leave them. From up here, the sound of starving children was quieter. He drew the letter from his pocket.

He'd written to his mother often since he'd returned from the Fortress. However, since he'd left medical school, he hadn't been stationary long enough for her to write back. It had been nearly a year since he'd heard from her.

And in that time, Chloe had died.

He couldn't imagine letting himself cry. He hadn't, not since the day that Lex had… He shuddered.

Chloe, his best friend and confident; the only woman he'd ever trusted enough to reveal his secret to; the brilliant hacker and reporter; was dead. He closed his eyes and wished that he'd had enough focus to listen for her all these years. He knew that the distance wouldn't have been an issue; he'd been in Germany when he'd heard Lex force himself on Lana.

At first he'd kept them straight in his head; he'd heard his mother, Chloe, Lana and Lois, their hearts beating disharmoniously, using a combination of his x-ray vision and telescopic vision to check on them, but never returning. But as work piled up, he couldn't study with so many hearts in his mind. So, one by one, he'd let them slip away.

He'd been surprised by the order in which he'd lost them. Lana, despite their history, had been the first to go. And, for some inexplicable reason, he'd held onto Lois for the longest. He'd reasoned that she got into much more trouble than any of the other women.

But Chloe… Chloe had gotten cancer. Ovarian cancer, according to his mother's letter; it had metastasized to her lungs and liver within months of detection. When she'd stopped getting her period, she'd thought she was pregnant.

She and Bruce Wayne had been engaged.

The image of Chloe, pale and haggard, flashed through his mind and was quickly replaced by the memory of him and Pete, explaining the legend of the Scarecrow. Chloe, incredulous at their stupidity, had yelled, "Why are we whispering?"

And for so long, Pete had been in love with her; for so long, she'd dragged Clark around, forcing him into a love of investigative reporting and of the search for the truth. He and Pete had often exchanged glances that spoke volumes: Chloe, they thought, she's going places. Chloe, they thought, she'll be great. She'll make the rest of the world love the hunt for a story; she'll make them honorable.

Chloe was the most human of them. She was sometimes disreputable, sometimes she lied, and sometimes she tripped over the needle of her moral compass, but she was always there for her friends.

Even when Clark had returned from the Fortress and had, with the help of Mr. Wayne, created this new identity for himself; for the year that he'd forced himself to stay in America, near his mother and near Metropolis, she was there for him. She'd even gone and gotten herself a date with Bruce Wayne so that she would have a legitimate connection to Kaleb Elliot.

Finally, floating over top of Mozambique, Clark cried.


	2. Chapter 2

**Quick note: Thanks to my betas, Valerie (MysticWolf1) and Travis (Darkl26139), and thanks to everyone who commented! Reviews are my life-force :D

Also, my laptop crashed a few days ago, so the only chapter that I have is the one sent back from the betas. Unfortunately, this means that the rest of the fic has disappeared into broken-computer-land. I'm going to do my best to get it back, but until then, I'm stuck with whatever I backed up two months ago. Which isn't all that much. I'm really sorry! With any luck, this will be resolved soon and I'll have a new chapter up in a few days.

Thanks again and remember to comment!!

Chapter Two

He went back. He'd given so much of his life to those people in the tents; they would feel betrayed if he left without explanation, without farewell. And Anna… he owed something to her. There was also the matter of the landmines: they'd never been this close to camp before, and he didn't want to have to worry about wandering children, or debris and smoke reaching the camp. He'd previously used his heat vision to set each of the mines on fire, thereby avoiding high-order detonation, but this time he inhaled deeply, and then blew cold air over the field, freezing the ground and the mines in it. He punched into the ground, retrieving the first mine, and imagined himself collecting them and placing them on the enemy's doorstep.

But no. Risk for loss of life would be too high. Also, it was more than slightly passive aggressive.

He carefully disarmed each one, moving at superspeed. He decided that enemy engineers must have planted while they'd been away, because each bomb was carefully buried in what he deduced to be a computer generated random matrix sequence.

Finished at last, he turned towards camp. Instead of running, he flew.

People were sleeping. He landed soundlessly outside the tent they'd shared for so long, sleeping together on the mattress on the floor barely long enough even for her to fit; he'd stopped trying to get comfortable on it after the first week. He knew, from living in a dorm room, that he'd sometimes float when the bed was uncomfortable. He'd hoped to have squashed all those bad habits before he'd left school, and Anna had never mentioned strange sleeping patterns to him.

Clark sometimes found her watching him, though. She watched, but not the way Lana had always watched him, like a mess to be decoded. She watched him similar to how Lois used to watch him: like a man she'd just never quite understand.

"You came back."

She'd pulled the tent flap open from the top, so that her face was framed in a V, her lips not visible, her eyes wide and questioning.

"I got a letter," he said. "My best friend died."

She offered a hand. Anna held a grudge, Clark knew, but she'd put it aside for a moment.

"Kal," she said. The name felt strange on his ears. The letter from his mother, addressed _Kaleb Elliot_ on the envelope, still read _Dear Clark_ in twirling penmanship on the inside. That was why he'd stopped giving a forwarding address. His name, carefully penned in his mother's handwriting, was enough to make him remember who he'd been.

He let her lead him into the tent.

"Talk to me," she said.

Clark hated to talk. Lana had always demanded it of him. She'd asked for the truth so many times, and he'd rehearsed how he would tell her again and again that he couldn't be sure that he hadn't said it aloud, maybe once. _I'm an alien_, his mind might hum, but he hadn't thought those words in years.

"I was afraid of doctors when I was little," he said. He laughed a little. "It never crossed my mind that I'd end up as one."

"Lots of kids hate doctors," Anna said. Her blonde hair was in a messy bun. It looked as though she'd rinsed the mud from the crash out of it.

The smile, strangely foreign on his face, slid away. He looked down at his hands. "I'm still afraid of doctors, though. Doctors, scientists, even inquiring minds, authority figures; they terrify me. I just thought that maybe, after what happened, it would be better to be one myself. A preemptive strike, if you know what I mean."

Without even looking up he knew she was shaking her head. She didn't understand—how could she?

He stopped. This wasn't what he wanted to talk about; it was Chloe: God, Chloe was dead and it didn't matter what planet he was from. When his father had died he'd sat on the pain for so long. When Lana had married Lex, he'd never expressed how torn up he was.. Talking; talking was supposed to be cathartic.

"Chloe's dead," he said aloud, meeting her eyes. The words stung his lips. "Chloe's dead and I can't even go home. I can't go back and see my mom or Chloe's dad or Lois because, God." He ran his hands through his hair. Anna didn't know; she'd never even heard these names before, Chloe was just a word to her and Chloe was gone, like a whisper he'd forgotten to hear. He could have saved her, or at least sat with her in the hospital. He was a surgeon for God's sake, he could have saved her. He should have been there for her like she had for him so many times.

"Why can't you go home?" she asked. "Plane ticket, customs, a bus or a limo, and you're home. It's easy. Long, expensive, tiring, but easy."

Clark looked down at his hands again. A memory, skin puckering around each of his fingers; a breathtaking _crack_ and Lex's last gasp, hitched in with blood.

"I don't even know where to start," he said.

"The beginning?" she asked, predictably.

"It would take weeks." He frowned. The beginning, for him, was a dying planet and the end for so many others. The beginning was a baby being sent from his parents into the dark of space. After a year at the Fortress, those memories were easily accessible for him. After a year at the Fortress, any memory could be brought back at will with startling precision. It had made Med School infinitely simpler for him.

"Somewhere between the beginning and now?" she asked.

He sighed. He would talk, then, and hope it would make him feel better; perhaps if he talked, he would realized that he could return, and that those memories would be no stronger or harder to bear if he were closer to where they'd occurred.

"Before I met you," he said, "I didn't really date much. Since I was a teenager, I'd been in love with this girl, but it didn't work out between us." He thought of Lana, and how she'd made him look at her and lie about loving her. "I broke up with her, and she ended up marrying my best friend."

Anna winced. "Weren't you just kids? I mean, this was before Med School, so you had to have been—"

"Yeah, we were just kids. But in Smallville, everything seems so important. I mean, before she married him, when we were still together, I'd asked her to marry me, too."

"She said no, did she?"

Clark shook his head. "But, it didn't work out, like I said. So I pretty much tried to stay out of her life after that. They got married, and everything was still so complicated. I ended up being a witness to a crime that her husband committed."

"A crime? Her husband, your best friend?"

"He raped her," he said, the edge of bitterness not gone from his voice. "The bastard raped her! I couldn't get there in time to stop him, but I'd heard enough and he was going to get off unless I testified."

Clark drew a deep breath. He could remember how he'd spoken to the District Attorney, and then convinced the Judge to hear his version. Finally, he thought of the lab, the one that he'd volunteered to go to and Dr. Williams, the kindly scientist who had betrayed him.

"You put him in jail," she said. "He was your friend, but you did the right thing. He wasn't a good person."

"Anna," he whispered. The vision of Lex's unconscious body, still looking so peaceful, before—

"Anna," he repeated, "I killed him."

She drew her hand away.

"Kal," she said, and she sounded scared. "He would have gone to jail. You didn't have to—God, Kal, you didn't have to _kill_ him."

He stared straight ahead; he couldn't bear to look and see her face twisted in disgust. "He did go to jail. He had me kidnapped and tortured for months. I thought," his voice hitched. "I thought I was going to die in there, in that room, never see the sun again or feel someone touching me who wasn't cutting me, or dragging me or binding me."

Anna watched him, his face, which usually remained so calm and expressionless, melt into a mask of terror. He looked as though he was reliving those moments, each one of them, and when she touched his hand again he flinched away.

"You killed him to escape?" she asked.

His voice was low.

"No," he said. The conviction in his voice scared her.

"I was able to escape, I mean, I got away," he continued. "I killed the two men who'd tortured me," he paused. He'd almost said _experimented on_. "I killed them because I was angry and scared and hurt. But Lex—"

"Lex Luthor," Anna whispered. She'd heard. Everyone had heard about the gruesome murder of one of the richest men in the world. They'd heard of him from before that, even; he had raped his wife. "And Lana," she continued. "Lana Luthor was the girl."

"I waited," Clark muttered. "Waited next to his unconscious bodyI could hear other people dying around me, but I didn't help them." His hands were shaking. He was as sturdy as a glacier; his hands never shook.

"I waited until he woke up," he said. "And then, I killed him."

They were quiet a long time.

"I could have saved her," he said. He sat down on the mattress and rested his head on his hands, his fingers clenching his hair tight enough to decapitate a normal person. He didn't know if he was talking about Lana or Chloe; he didn't know if he could have saved anyone.

Anna sat down next to him. She touched arm and repeated those words.

"You can't save everyone."

Q

He left the next morning. He woke the children and to them, he said goodbye. But he didn't wake Anna. He didn't want to see the fear in her eyes, or the brightness of connection, of her realization that he was a murderer.

To the kids, he said, "If you ever need me, for anything, just yell my name. I'll find you."

To Anna, he whispered, "The bed will feel bigger without me."

With his bag over one shoulder and the place he'd called home for the last year behind him, he contemplated the stupidity of his last two comments.

Thirty children, half a world away and he's promised them that he'd always come. He had no idea if their voices would still stay in his mind once he was in a city again, once he had other people talking, yelling, sobbing all around him. He didn't know if the military would notice him breaking the sound barrier all over the place.

And of course the bed would seem bigger without him. For her last nights in Africa, Anna would be alone, shivering in a bed suddenly too large to keep warm by herself. She would think about him and wish she'd never met him, the amoral murderous asshole who left without even saying goodbye.

A moment later, he was with the kids again, saying, "You'll have to yell _really_ loud though. And only if you really, really need help. Okay? And yell more than once, say it again and again. I can't say for sure I'll hear you, but I think that I will. I think I'll be able to come. I can't promise, but I'll try my best. And you guys stay safe for me, okay?"

He hugged them, all over again, and left them more than a little confused.

Outside of his tent, Anna's tent, he paused.

The tent flap flew open, sending the tent shaking dangerously close to collapse.

"You jerk," she yelled. She winced and lowered her voice.

"You bare your heart to me last night," she hissed. "You tell me your darkest secrets and fall asleep in my arms, and you think you can _sneak away_ before day break?"

He pointed at the horizon; the sun was just high enough to send shadows through the city of tents.

"Don't be a smart ass," she said.

"You don't hate me?" he asked. "You don't think I'm an amoral murderous asshole?"

"Ass, yes. I already said that."

She glared.

"But what I told you—" he started.

"You went through something terrible," she said. "You did some things that were terrible. But I think it's obvious to me and all the people that you've helped that you're anything but amoral. The lives you've affected, in this past year alone seem to outweigh the pain you've caused."

He winced and looked away.

"I forgive you, Clark Kent," she said. Startled at the usage of his name, his _real_ name, he looked back at her.

"At some point," she continued, "you're going to have to forgive yourself."

He let her touch his arm. "I've tried," he whispered. "All this time, away from my family, away from Chloe and Lo—" His breath hitched. "If I could forgive myself, I could go home."

"You came here to repent," she said sadly. "Years of medical school, and then living in the deserts of Africa, to atone? To save the world, one little life at a time?"

The kids had heard the yelling; they were assembling just outside their tent. "They love you," she said. "They love you because you're a good person, not because you heal their wounds or bring them food. Kal… Clark. _I_ love you." She was close now and looking up at him. She was over a head shorter than him, and he bent at the knees to bring his face closer to hers.

"Come back with me," she said, their eyes dangerously close together. "And then later, in a few months, we'll come back here together. We can help people because we care, and not because you think you have to make up for what you've done."

He closed his eyes, resting his forehead against hers. For a minute, he could imagine himself sitting with her, gripping her hand because he hated flying on planes; she would make fun of him and he would clutch her hand a little bit too tightly whenever they hit turbulence.

They'd fly to New York, or Washington, or whatever big city she'd grown up in and she'd spend weeks with her superiors, presenting data and trying to convince them to give her more money. He'd remind himself that just because she saw the big picture, just because she was the one with hope for the future and an idea and a plan—it didn't matter. He would forget about Chloe. He would forget about Lex. He would forget about Dr. Williams and pretend that he was just a normal kid from medical school who wanted the glory of being able to sew people back together.

But Chloe was dead. She'd died of cancer and even if he'd been there to cut every maverick cell from her body, it wouldn't have saved her.

When he'd been locked away, tethered to a table like a rat ready for dissection, he'd heard things.

Thing's he'd never been able to let himself think about before now. Things that would affect the bigger picture, and give him some sort of goal for the future.

He thought of Sean, the scientist, brandishing his clipboard at him and yelling.

_"You have, within you, the scientific equivalent of the coming of Christ. Near instantaneous healing, the cure for cancer. When you consider your abilities, don't think of you, the angst-filled, misguided, lonely teenager. Think about the lives you could save. The blind could see, the deaf could hear, the old could be young again."_

"I can't," he said.

"Kal?" Anna asked.

"You're right," he said. "I've been selfish."

"Um," she said, sounding hesitant. "I don't think I said—"

"It's easy enough to throw myself into this work," he said. "Surround myself with the dead or dying and put back together as many lives as I can. It's safe. It's simple."

Anna grabbed his wrist, "Says the guy who wandered through a mine field yesterday."

"It was safe," he repeated. "I could tell where the mines were. Even if I'd tripped one… I would have been safe."

She was shaking her head. "What people say about you, it's not true, Kal. You've heard it too many times; you're starting to believe it. You're just a man, Kal, one man."

He thought, for a moment, how strange it was that this was someone trying to convince him that he was normal. For years, Chloe, Lana, Lex had all insisted that he was anything but.

"I can change the world. The blind could see; the deaf could hear… Anna, the old could be young again. The cure for cancer, it's all here," he gestured to himself.

"You're having delusions of grandeur," she protested, trying to cover up his voice, trying to make sense of what he was saying, but he kept talking.

"There's so much in here, so much I'm capable of, I barely even know where to turn, how to start," he said, one hand in his hair again. "Every class, oncology, microbiology, cell systems, biochemistry: the irrelevant ones, they're coming back to me and I can't even keep all the information in order. With the tools I have, I should have seen it years before now.'

"Irritable mood, racing thoughts, flight of ideas," she said, "engaging in risky behaviours: sounds like a manic episode to me."

"It's much harder to look in on yourself, to scrutinize yourself, to put _yourself_ under the microscope," he continued, ignoring her, gesturing with his hands, pacing back and forth. "I've been under the microscope before, and I thought it was okay, because I did it for Lana, but it changed me, Anna, it really changes a person, being locked away, always being watched, being told how to take your next breath—"

"Has clearly been institutionalized before, and is absorbing cues from the media, imagining a connection to famous figures like Lex Luthor and Lana Luthor, constructing a colourful back story—"

"So become a scientist, I think, and I get halfway there, because a surgeon manipulates other bodies, never worries about himself, doesn't turn the scalpel his own way—"

"Vocalizes considerations of self mutilation—"

"I could have saved her." He threw his hands up, paced a little quicker. "If I'd stepped forward, if I'd done the research, I could have saved her."

"Psychomotor agitation—"

"Would you stop?" he yelled.

She paused.

"You're scaring me."

"More than I scared you last night when I told you about the three men I'd murdered?" he hissed, pulling her suddenly close.

She raised her chin to him defiantly, her eyes flicked quickly to the kids, who were being herded back into their tent. "I still knew who you were, last night. You were hurting. You were scared."

"And now?" he asked, sarcasm biting into his voice. "Tell me, with your psychobabble, what am I now?"

He remembered Sean telling his father that _the subject_ wasn't human. He'd believed that Clark had a long harbored fear of being dehumanized; with that cue and little else he'd used his psychology PhD to conclude that Clark was some kind of inhuman beast, and if Anna pointed her eyes his way and told him that his racing thoughts and psychomotor agitation clearly indicated that he was an alien, he was going to fly away and never come back.

"It's not psychobabble. It's psych 101."

"A manic episode?" he asked. His breathing was calmer. His hands had stopped trembling and he peeled his fingers out of her arms.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Me too."

They stood quiet for a bit.

"You're leaving me," she said, finally.

"No. Maybe. I don't know."

"In a few minutes, I'm going to be standing here alone."

"Yes."

"You're leaving me," she repeated.

"I just don't know what this means, for us," he said.

She looked at her feet. "If I hadn't seen it myself," she started, "then I'd think you were crazy. But, I've seen you, and you run towards explosions instead of away. I've seen you throw boulders like they're balls of tinfoil and I've seen you start fires in the middle of the desert with nothing but sand and a pile of twigs. Sometimes, I wake up at night alone in the bed… and see you floating above me."

Clark winced, expected a demand for an explanation, but she continued.

"If I wasn't strictly unreligious, I'd think you _were_ the second coming of Christ; I'd believe them when they say you're a savior. So, when you tell me that you're going to change the world," she reached towards him and cupped his face, turning it towards her again, "I believe you, Kaleb Elliot; Clark Kent; whatever you call yourself. You are going to change the world."

A smile spread across his face. He pulled her into a hug.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

He'd arrived in Gotham, windswept and ragged, his clothes torn and hanging off him from the speed he'd been traveling. He'd never moved that fast before; in the past he'd always been able to arrive fully clothed.

Bruce came to the door, which was strange in and of itself. The expression of shock and terror on his face nearly broke Clark's heart. Clark drew him into a hug which he expected Bruce to protest; it was a testament to how broken up he really was that the man simply let himself sink into Clark's arms.

"Clark" he said finally. "I'm not sure if you have the best or worst timing in the world. The funeral's this evening."

"God, Bruce," Clark said, and he followed him inside. Watching him walk a few paces in front of him, Clark guessed by the way the man limped that he'd been throwing himself into his work as Batman. He expected if he looked at the newspapers, they would be screaming about Batman's new recklessness; more criminals seriously injured, more civilians jeopardized. Imagining Batman on the street, grief released as violence, his fear of being alone tearing into petty criminals, Clark couldn't help but wonder if Bruce's pain and the loss of Chloe would cause him to destroy all the good that Batman had accomplished.

"Chloe left this for you," Bruce said, and a key was flung at him. There was a tag attached to it, with the name of a bank on it. Pocketing it, he followed Bruce into the living room.

Bruce sat loudly on a couch, and Clark settled himself across from him. "You've been out of touch a while," Bruce said. "Where have you been?"

"Africa," Clark replied. "Mozambique. Just helping where I can."

"You stopped visiting," Bruce said. "Chloe really missed you. It's not like it would have taken you more than ten minutes to fly back over here—"

"National security was on my back, Bruce," Clark replied. "If I'd kept on breaking the sound barrier four times a day, they would have caught me."

"I think we both know that's bullshit," Bruce said. He looked like he wanted to stand up, to yell, but didn't have the energy. "You could have suited up. You could have gone public."

"Not so soon after Clark Kent's disappearance, I couldn't have," Clark said. "In case you've forgotten, Clark Kent is dead. Calling myself Kal Elliot and putting on a suit—"

This time Bruce did stand up. "You could have worn a mask, you could have booted up some Kryptonian technology and made yourself undetectable, you could have put a paper bag over your head for all I care; you should have come home. Your mom missed you; Lana came around all the time like a broken puppy, convinced that you were going to land any minute in your flying saucer. You should have set things straight with her before disappearing. I've never seen anyone so hurt and confused."

"It was too close." Clark said. His sudden anger mingled with the realization of what he'd lost by leaving; the two of them had been inseparable for the time Clark had spent in Gotham, kindred spirits, both haunted and trying to get their lives back on track.

And now: arguing just hours before Chloe's funeral.

"It was too close!" he repeated, yelling this time. "Too close to Lex and to Lana. It was too goddamned close to that laboratory; I could still smell the blood and fire, I could still hear the wind whistling through the holes I'd punched in the walls and squeaking as it blew through the equipment that they tied me to. Whatever training, whatever torture you put yourself through so that you could become this vigilante hero, you had control, Bruce. You could return home. You could remember the lessons and forget the pain. Your home wasn't tainted with that sterilized smell, the sight of my caves where they abducted me; every Kansas road looking like the Kansas road I looked out on when I escaped, every forest looking exactly the same as the one that surrounded that prison. You didn't—"

"Okay," Bruce said quietly. "Okay."

"Do you not think that I blame myself for this?" Clark said, the volume gone. "I should have been there."

"Yeah," Bruce said. "You should have."

"I'm a surgeon, Bruce, I'm sure mom told you," Clark admitted. "I could have helped her; given her longer."

Bruce looked surprised. "No, I didn't know, actually. Your mom hasn't been talking to us lately."

"What?" Clark exclaimed. "What do you mean?"

"Have you gone to see her?" he asked. Clark shook his head. "It's a long story—essentially your mom is pushing through a bill that will require the registration of all masked superheroes."

Clark's jaw dropped. "Excuse me?" he said, incredulously.

"There was an incident in Star City," Bruce explained. "Nasty business; Green Arrow was convicted of the accidental killing of an eighteen year old girl named Cindy Charles. There was a hostage situation and Oliver had to shoot the girl through the shoulder in order to drop the bad guy. It was a clean shot, she should have been fine. Autopsy showed that he didn't even knick the bone, any arteries or nerves. But she had some sort of heart condition, and she dropped faster than the guy with the arrow out his neck."

"And the bad guy, he—" Clark asked, curious suddenly about the methods that the Green Arrow was resorting to.

"Oh, he lived," Bruce said, sounding annoyed at the irony.

He paused; Alfred had just entered the room, looking older and more ragged than Clark had ever seen him. On the tray was, unexpectedly, a mickey of whiskey and a glass of ice. Bruce thanked him, and Alfred left again, without even greeting their visitor.

"Ollie showed up for his court date, let the judge reprimand him, listened to the witnesses, let the girl's family blame him, and didn't even flinch when the jury brought back a guilty verdict. But when the cops came at him with the cuffs, he used a spring-loaded concealed bow to rappel up and out through the stain glass window of the court room."

"Shit," Clark swore. Bruce looked at him in surprise, as though the cuss word were the strangest thing that had happened that day.

"Has he been underground?" Clark asked.

"No, he just carried on as usual, just avoided sticking around too long at any one crime scene. He did issue a public apology on the news, but I'm pretty sure that Chloe just hacked it over top of the regular news cast, which probably pissed off the state government officials even more. So Senator Kent thought that the best way to placate the people would be to have an Identification Act. Any person or organization acting in the best interests of the general public must identify themselves and register for license to fight crime. Furthermore, they must submit to mandatory training days and agree to receive an e-newsletter twice a month."

"I sure hope you're joking," Clark said.

"About the newsletter? Yeah. Not about the rest though."

"Shit," Clark said again. "If this bill goes through?"

"There aren't that many of us out there, Clark. People with power are far more likely to end up corrupt and criminals than as do-gooders. But there are enough of us. We could fight this."

"Do we all want to? How do AC, Victor and Bart feel?"

"Victor is legally dead, and up until about three years ago I don't think he would have had issue with it. But he got himself a new identity, Victor Smitten, and he's fallen in love with this pretty girl named Angelina and Angie's two daughters. He needs to protect them before anything else. Bart just finished his law degree, and he's fairly certain that the law firm that just hired him wouldn't be interested in a super-powered lawyer giving them all sorts of weird PR. AC… well," Bruce laughed. "Strangely enough, AC has kind of dropped off our radar. He's been swimming with the fishes for half a decade, only checks in around Christmas."

Clark sighed. "I'll talk to my mom. I'll convince her out of it."

"Well, we'll be seeing her soon," Bruce said, and all at once reality returned.

Clark nearly always wore black lately, and he glanced at himself in the mirror, expecting to find himself looking fairly suitable for a funeral. He was shocked to see that his clothes were mostly in tatters. He borrowed one of Bruce's suits and the two of them headed out, driving in Bruce's red Lamborghini. No matter the occasion, Bruce explained, he still had to be Bruce. The very act of being engaged, he told Clark, had seriously compromised his reputation as a playboy, seriously jeopardized his secret identity.

He was distancing himself. Clark remembered Chloe's wide smile and her bright eyes; he wished—and he'd never wished this before—that he hadn't moved to Europe. This could have been home. Chloe and Bruce and Lois and Mom, they could have been home.

Q

Clark stayed near the back for the funeral. He watched Lois, Lana, and Martha shuffled into the front row. He desperately wished that he could be sitting beside them. Lois hugged Bruce long and hard, and Clark saw her back tighten, just once, with a muffled sob.

His mom reached out and touched Bruce's arm, but Bruce pulled away, sitting down between Oliver and Lois. Clark saw Bruce whisper something to Oliver and the two men glanced back at him briefly.

It was a beautiful ceremony. Bruce, Lois and Chloe's father all spoke, Lois surprisingly witty as she recounted some of Chloe's adventures. Clark was intrigued by the tone of the funeral; despite their somber, tear streaked faces, they were taking part in a celebration of Chloe's life. He listened and smiled at the stories he knew, and took in every word of the stories he didn't, barely able to take his eyes off the photo of Chloe that rested on the coffin.

Lois mentioned him in her eulogy. It shocked him, to hear her speak so fondly of him. Those who spoke seemed at peace; they spoke as though they had loved her, and would continue to love her. The priest took over and motioned for the pall bearers to stand; Clark turned and left the church. He didn't want to see the hearse drive away with her body—God, her body, he almost laughed—so he went around to the back garden where the caterers were stationed, setting up just inside.

He stood outside the reception hall and listened to Chloe's closest friends—some that he knew, some that he didn't—as they talked about her. After a while, Oliver, Victor and Bart stepped out of the fray. Clark frowned when he realized that he hadn't noticed the other heroes earlier. He supposed, working from left to right, that he'd come across the photo of Chloe in the center of the church and not even thought to look any further.

Oliver gestured towards where Clark stood near a tree. They approached him somberly, Bart still holding an hors d' oeuvre in his hand.

"Clark," Oliver said.

"Just for the day," Clark corrected. They shook hands and Oliver pulled him into an embrace.

"Victor, Bart," Clark greeted them. They watched him, a little dumbfounded. "Did you not get the memo?"

"About your obvious lack of deadness?" Bart asked, his voice hoarse. "No, afraid we missed that one."

Clark looked accusingly at Oliver. "What?" Oliver asked. "You told me to keep it on the down-low."

"I'm pretty sure that anyone who is part of the 'Clark Kent Is an Alien' club is also allowed to be a part of the 'Clark Kent is not really Dead' club."

Victor gaped at him. "You're a _what_?" he asked.

"Seriously?" Clark said.

"Your secret, your responsibility," Oliver pointed out. "I'm not going to yell at you for abandoning Chloe in her time of need; I assume that Bruce already did that."

"He may have done," Clark admitted.

"And I'm not going to complain at the complete absence of superhero activity coming from your side of the earth lately," Oliver continued.

"Fair enough," Clark muttered.

"As long as you tell me what the hell you've been doing with yourself for the past, what, seven years?"

"Six and a half," Clark grumbled. He glanced up at the three men watched him intently. "Wait, did you mean now?"

They looked expectant. "You guys, we're at Chloe's funeral, shouldn't we be—"

"Chloe's had cancer for over a year now," Bart said. "We've been in mourning since the day they said 'metastasize'. We all made our peace with her a long time ago."

"Can we at least go somewhere? I can't really risk being spotted."

"Have you talked to your mom yet?" said Victor, accusingly.

"No," Clark said, sounding offended. "People keep asking me that."

"Do you know what's going on?" Victor asked. "I have my girls to think about."

"I know," Clark said. "And I'll deal with it." Suddenly he heard Lois' voice and he stepped behind the tree. "Where should we go to talk?" he asked.

Bart grinned. "Follow my lead, Boy Scout," he said, and he took off.

Clark was able to easily keep up with Bart, which surprised both of them. They ran off course, exploring, having fun. Clark laughed, and shocked by the sound. Bart turned his head, and gestured for Clark to try to catch up with him. Clark powered ahead, shooting past Bart and launching himself into the air a bit. For the moment, running and jumping with someone who could keep up with him, forgetting about his problems, like he really was just Clark again and that man, Kal Elliot, was only a scarred, serious mask that he wore for special occasions.

They reached a lake, and Bart took off across it. Clark jumped into the air and closed his eyes for a second as he let gravity drop away, no longer pressing him towards the earth he propelled forward, leaving a wake of hot, vibrating molecules behind him.

Bart, glancing behind him and undoubtedly hoping to see Clark stranded on land, was so shocked to see Clark zooming right behind him, disturbing the water into colourful arcs in the sunlight, that he stopped moving and fell into the water.

"Need a hand?" Clark asked, chuckling.

"Since when can you fly, Clark?" Bart took a deep breath and disappeared under the water. Less than a second later he was at the shore, pulling himself up out of the weeds. Clark floated over to him.

"Since I left," Clark said. "If it makes you feel any better, I can't do that walking on water trick you have."

"It does not make me feel better," Bart said. "We're almost there. I need to go dry off."

They were inside Oliver Queen's mansion just outside Starr City moments later.

"It's worse than we originally thought," Oliver explained as he stepped from the helicopter. Victor and Bruce followed him. "I don't want you to take offense," he continued, "but it seems like your mom is being manipulated."

"By whom?" Clark asked.

"Lionel Luthor," Bruce interjected.

"Of course," Clark said, unsurprised.

"They're a couple, now," Oliver said. Clark looked up sharply. "One hell of a couple," he muttered.

"This comes back to Lex, actually," Victor said. "I hacked into Lionel's computer system a few weeks ago. Stole a pdf file of Lex's will, and needless to say, there are some interesting requests. He went all martyr when he got out of jail, and his will allots a bunch of his money to battered women shelters, free clinics, orphanages, the works."

"He left his dad something else," Oliver said, moving forward and holding a folder out to Clark.

Clark paused before taking the folder. It was strange, meeting up with the old group like this, all of them acting as though nothing had changed. Except for a slight terseness, a tightness around their mouths, they were acting normally towards him. Oliver, of all people, had always at least mocked Clark's inability to go public, not always comfortable with a frank conversation. Their eyes met. Oliver's brows furrowed. Clark took the folder.

Clark flipped it open and stared in amazement at a list of names. "Who are these people?" Clark asked.

"People with abilities," Bruce said. "Superheroes and their identities. I guess we'll never know how he got this information. All of us here are on that list."

Clark flipped through the pages; his name, Clark Kent, stared back at him from the fourth page.

"The computer files are extensive," Victor said. "That's just the list with the names filtered out. He has abilities, aliases, known locations, family members; there's enough information to make your head spin."

"Had," Clark said quietly.

"What?" Victor demanded.

"Lex had, not has."

There was a silence.

"What does my mom have to do with this?" Clark asked.

"She's pushing through this bill that requires that people with abilities register with the government, as I mentioned." Bruce said. "But she's not letting anyone know about this list. She's giving the impression that any differently-abled people who want to simply lay low will remain unprosecuted as long as they refrain from public use of their powers."

"What makes you think that my mom even knows about this list?" Clark asked.

Bruce and Oliver exchanged glances. "They're living together, now," Oliver said. "We were only able to get Victor access to Lionel's computer for a limited amount of time, but on his way out of their condo, he swiped this laptop." He pulled out a computer from a drawer in his desk. "It's your mom's computer. She has duplicates."

Clark ran his hand through his hair, cursing under his breath. With a burst of wind, Bart appeared in the doorway, looking tousled and dry. "Did I miss Boy Scout's tantrum of righteous indignation?" he asked, looking apprehensively at Clark.

"It didn't happen, Bart," Clark muttered. He shook his head. "Not yet."

Q

"Lois Lane?" Clark said into the phone. He heard a sipping noise and imagined her drinking coffee from a large Styrofoam cup, her hair frizzing out and her eyes red-rimmed from the sleepless nights.

"Yeah," she said. "Can I help you?"

"My name is Kaleb Elliot," he said. She jumped in before he could finish.

"Bruce Wayne's new boy toy?" she asked. "I read in the Gotham Times that you'd returned to the country. You have a story for me?"

"Well, I—"

"It better not be some human interest piece about your adventures overseas saving the dolphins or whatever," she said. "I'm an investigative reporter. I can forward you to another—"

"I want to see _you_, Miss Lane," Clark said, glad to be the one interjecting and not the one getting cut off this time. "It's about Lex Luthor."

There was a silence on the line, and Clark could hear the familiar noises of the news room.

"Quick question," she said. "For the protégé of a playboy like Bruce Wayne, how come there aren't any pictures of you anywhere?"

"Miss Lane," Clark said, his voice deep. "Did you Google me?"

"I like to know who I'm dealing with," she snapped. "How soon can you meet me?"

"How does right now sound?"

Moments later, Clark was sitting at the coffee shop that Lois had suggested. He ran his hand nervously through his hair; since his speed had increased, he'd been having trouble arriving anywhere without it sticking straight up. He wondered if she'd recognize him, after all, he was dressed in a smart black button up shirt and jeans that had cost him nearly half of his rent.

He glanced down, checking himself out again. In Africa he'd only had one pair of jeans that had survived until the end of his trip, and those had been ripped at the knee on one leg. If Bruce wanted to give him spending money, he sure wasn't going to complain.

However, there was also the small detail that Clark Kent was supposed to be dead. He knew Lois, and Lois only saw exactly what she expected to see. There was no way that she was walking into this coffee shop expecting Clark to be waiting for her.

A waitress stopped by his table so Clark took some time to flirt with her. His existence as Kal had been equal parts somber and carefree. His past would take hold of him for weeks at a time, leaving him nearly completely incapable of normal functioning. He would miss classes, avoid human contact, forget to eat, forget to sleep, and then one day he'd wake up and feel as though he'd just rolled out of bed that morning in Kansas before Lex had run him over with his Porsche. He would suddenly be normal, he could tuck his past away, he could laugh again. But in Metropolis, with Chloe's death and seeing all of his friends again—he couldn't help but be overwhelmed with the past. He could feel himself slipping.

But he was getting very good at pretending.

When Lois walked into the store, she approached the hostess, whom she asked directly and a bit rudely if she knew where she could find Kaleb Elliot. She found herself wishing that she'd asked him for a description, or even what colour shirt he'd be wearing, but the hostess didn't hesitate to reply.

"He sure disappointed my girls when he told them he was waiting for someone," she said. "Now that you're here, maybe they'll get some work done."

Lois felt her heart sinking, as she scanned the room, settling her gaze where the hostess had pointed. There was a blonde sitting across from him, her face animated, her hands flirtatious. His back was towards her so that Lois could only see his messy dark hair and his broad shoulders.

"Get lost," she said to the waitress; the blonde stood slowly, taking her hand off his and picking up her tray. Lois sat herself heavily on the chair, pulling out her notebook and pen.

"Mr. Elliot," she said as she riffled through her purse. "You had better have some decent information, because I left a very important case hanging to come see—"

She stopped talking. The pen fell to the floor.

"I'm sorry," she said. "You just look like someone I used to know."

And Clark stared back at her. The eyes were different, Lois told herself. The eyes were all wrong, they were closed off, distant; an alien shade of blue. Clark's eyes had always been green and so very warm, so welcoming.

Clark waited for her to recognize him. He didn't know what he would do if that was all he got—the shock, the vague detection, it wasn't enough. He wasn't sure why he'd called her, but it wasn't for this. He was suddenly itchy to get out of his skin, to be Clark Kent again, to let Kaleb Elliot fade away. He wanted to be Clark for her.

He'd been wrong, he mused. She didn't look tired or worn at all.

He touched her hand. "Can we go somewhere more private?" he asked her.

She flinched, pulled her hand away.

"What are you trying to pull, wise guy?" she demanded loudly. "I'm here for a story."

He looked at her for another moment, trying to figure out if she was honestly going to just brush this under the proverbial rug.

"Of course," he said, finally. He sighed. "Lois. Miss Lane—"

"Lois is fine," she snapped. Her notebook and pen were ready again. She looked calm, unaffected.

"Lois," he said. "I was so sorry to hear about Chloe. She was your cousin."

Lois was shocked to hear the hitch in his voice. He sounded as though he were truly sad about her death. "How did you know?" she asked.

"I'm very close with Bruce Wayne," he explained. "But you knew that."

"Lex Luthor," she said. "What do you know?"

Clark slid his hand into his pocket and fingered the DVD case. After Bruce had given him the key to the safety deposit box, Clark had gone immediately to the bank to retrieve the contents. He'd been expecting something sentimental, maybe some old articles that they'd written together, or a picture of them when they were younger and more carefree. What he found horrified him.

All the research from when he'd been kidnapped; it was all there. Files, case studies, data, diagrams and videos; the entire chronicle of his visit to Lex's lab.

He'd gone through the videos and taken enough. He'd copied what wouldn't reveal Clark Kent as a test subject rather than a torture victim. The part where Lex beat him up, shortly before bringing out the black Kryptonite; clips of Clark in his room, his chest scarred and bruised, looking emaciated and sleep deprived.

His hands shook as he put the DVD on the table.

"Lex Luthor died and the world forgot about what a monster he was," Clark said. "He was acquitted of the rape of his wife, and all the allegations about the labs and the illegal experiments were dropped when no one could find any connection between him and the hell hole he died in."

He slid the DVD across to Lois. "I can't give you originals," he said, "but there's more where that came from."

Their eyes met, and they stared at each other.

"There's more going on here," she accused. "What's your personal stake in this? What did Lex do to you?"

A million thoughts ran through Clark's head. He wanted to tell Lois what Lex had done to him in excruciating, second-by-second detail. He wanted to finally have someone hear the truth, but his mind fled instead to a lie.

It was the cover story that he and Bruce had concocted years ago, before he'd even gone to Europe. Bruce had forged birth certificates, adoption records, school records, and all with such expertise that Clark had started to wonder if Bruce didn't invent people on a regular basis.

They'd chosen a birth date, and on that day, at a hospital in Metropolis, twins had been born. They'd been given names, which had been irrelevant because, according to the records, the woman who had birthed these twins had gone septic and died within the hour.

They'd gone to a foster home; the kind that only existed for the three years that they'd lived there; then the foster home had disbanded and the babies had gone missing. One, apparently, had turned up in a Kansas cornfield. The other had been taken in by an elderly couple who had moved to Gotham city and died of old age when young Kaleb had been twenty.

"Lex Luthor killed my brother," he said his rage towards Lex, that lab, those scientists leaking into his voice. He let Lois take the DVD from him. His hands were still shaking, which didn't make sense to him; as a surgeon, as Kal-El, his hands never shook. "His name was Clark Kent."

Lois pushed herself back from the table and the chair squeaked in protest. "Are you fucking with me?" she demanded.

"You said I reminded you of someone," he said. "Clark Kent was your friend."

He expected a sarcastic remark from her, spiteful and biting, declining any friendship with any such farm boy. He was surprised, therefore, when her eyes dropped into her lap and her fingers tangled into her hair, leaving the DVD unprotected on her lap.

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, he was."


End file.
